Congratulations, you are just holding the successor of the world's first and only USB flash cartridge for the Nintendo Virtual Boy in your hands!

Using your FlashBoy Plus is very simple:

1. Connecting

First, connect your FlashBoy Plus cartridge to your Windows PC using the supplied mini USB cable and wait for it to be recognized and installed.

2. Padding

The Virtual Boy game ROM you want to load to your FlashBoy Plus has to be padded to 16 MBit (2 MByte) first. If it already is a game of that size, you can skip this step.

For padding, use the supplied padder software by DogP, you can find it in the "Programs" folder or for download at flashboy.planetvb.com. Simply drag'n'drop what you want to load onto it and a padded file will be generated. You can also pad several files at once.


3. Loading

When your game has been padded, you can load it onto your FlashBoy Plus cart using the supplied loader software, you can find it in the "Programs" folder or for download at flashboy.planetvb.com.

Just open the loader, select your (padded) ROM and click the "FLASH" button. The loader will first delete the FlashBoy Plus' flash chip, and then load the new game. Note that this can take up to 2 1/2 minutes, depending on the (original) game size.

Dev Mode:
The Loader has a special option for developers, which allows to flash homebew ROMs in just a few seconds.
First of all load your padded homebrew onto the cart (this sets up the reset vectors at the end of the flash). Then, select "Dev" in the menu under "Mode" and then load your smaller file.
Once the reset vectors are in place, the loader just erases and loads the required portion of flash resulting in very low flashing times.


4. Play

The game ROM has been loaded to your FlashBoy Plus, now disconnect it from your PC, plug it into your Virtual Boy and enjoy! :)


Notes & Troubleshooting

- NEVER leave the FlashBoy Plus in the Virtual Boy while loading a new game onto it, or your FlashBoy Plus might get damaged!

- If your loaded game is not working, you should try another padding option than "automatic" (By holding down CTRL while dropping your ROM(s) onto the padder, you can adjust padding options) or reconnect your USB cable.

- If your FlashBoy Plus does not function properly, check the following:
= Does the game get flashed correctly at all? Or does the flashing stop before?
= If it does not flash completely, does rebooting your PC and/or restarting the loader software solve the problem? Reconnecting the FlashBoy Plus and cable?
= Does it work with another USB cable?
= How did you connect your FlashBoy Plus to the PC? There are reports that it does not work with multi USB PCI cards or USB hubs.

- Please keep in mind that you have to own the original game cartridge if you want to play ROMs of commercial games on your FlashBoy Plus. The FlashBoy Plus is meant to be a homebrewers' tool in the first place!